Land Rights and Justice in South Africa

Black South African farmers have long toiled against poverty and inequality, in no small part because the land they till is rarely their own. Now President Jacob Zuma is proposing reforms that would ostensibly put some of this land in the hands of the farmers, but would bring them no closer to actual ownership. It’s an excuse for land nationalization, not effective land reform.

In recent years, Mr. Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) party has repeatedly blamed persistent black poverty on skewed land ownership. Historical...